VisitingLower 9th

This print piece is a visual interpretation of a This American Life podcast episode about the Lower Ninth Ward ten years after Hurricane Katrina hit. Using transcripts from survivor accounts contrasted with travel reviews, photos, and maps from TripAdvisor, this print piece highlights a lack of empathy from bystanders.

This American Life is a weekly radio show and podcast produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. In a special episode of the podcast, Ira Glass visits the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans ten years after the hurricane to talk to people living there.

The Lower 9th was hit the hardest during the hurricane yet it received the least amount of help. While most of New Orleans have recovered from the hurricane, the population of the Lower 9th Ward is less than half of what it used to be. Little of the infrastructure has been rebuilt, and the hurricane swept out a community that was home to many residents of the Lower 9th.

Surviving the hurricane and dealing with loss in its wake carved a deep divide between the people of the Lower 9th and the rest of the world. The podcast reveals an overwhelming feeling of loneliness as central to the common experience of these survivors.

I saw a gap in understanding between the people who saw the Lower 9th as a travel destination and those who could hear the voices of the survivors. Because many can't see past the physical damage done to the Lower 9th, people have responded to the disaster in a way that has taken the inhabitants of the Lower 9th completely out of the equation. There's a big difference in perception between those visiting the Lower 9th Ward and those living there.

This book is constructed of two narratives beginning on opposite ends of the book. One side presents itself as a travel guide with information about Hurricane Katrina accompanied with photos of all that is expected in a travel guide, like reviews, photos, maps, and tours, all taken from TripAdvisor. They are then translated into a physical form that represents cheap pamphlets or survey forms, hastily filled out with handwritten reviews, a contact sheet, tour tickets, and a marked up map. They are photographed with survivor objects placed on top of them as a metaphor for how oblivious people who see the Lower 9th as a travel destination are, even when they are in contact with hurricane survivors. The other side of the book shows accounts of survivors of the Lower 9th. Although for the most part the survivor stories remain set in small text, some phrases are shown showing emphatically with type and color to juxtapose the travel information on the other side. The bright colors used throughout the book purposefully makes light of a dark subject.

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I'm a designer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, currently in my last year of studying Communication Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Previously, I was at Uber ↗ as a product design intern and at Thread Design ↗ as a graphic design intern. I use my work as a means of telling stories, and my visual sensibilities are largely derived from inspiration in the physical world. In my spare time I collect Lucky Peach ↗ magazines and think about what it would be like to host a dinner party for fifty people.